WHY can’t wealthier pensioners waive the winter fuel payment rather than be told to give it away?

That is taxpayers’ money and this payment accounts for a large proportion of the welfare bill. Though some low-paid workers may not pay income tax, we all pay a massive 20 per cent VAT which means none of us escape taxes.

If those pensioners gave their fuel allowance to the unemployed, I bet the mean-minded Government would soon claw it back. They prefer to demonise and impoverish the unemployed as if after up to 30 years of work have suddenly grown another head. Many newly-unemployed people have degrees they paid to study for.

Many have worked since leaving school and now, through no fault of their own, find they cannot get any type of job, no matter how menial.

Not one MP has resigned to save money, I notice. Not one has offered to take a pay cut; not one has stopped their ‘fact-finding’ missions to China and other exotic locations.

Not one wealthy ex-minister has set a good example by waiving their winter fuel allowance.

Why keep penalising the unemployed and claiming the welfare bill is so high through them and then openly admit they’re giving too much money away to one section of the population?

Many pensions have been more or less confiscated just as people reach 60. Those people will be forced onto Jobseekers at 60 or 65 and then will be entitled to council tax benefit meaning they in effect get more than they would from the state pension they paid into.

Celia Morley, Nawton